Editorial counterpoint: Diagnosing the farm vet shortage, and how to heal it

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I am reading again about the need for solutions to the shortage of rural — especially farm animal — veterinarians in Minnesota. After more than 30 years as a mixed animal practitioner, here are my observations and thoughts on possible solutions ("Rural vet shortage requires solutions," July 2).

In the past weeks three local farm animal veterinarians have aged out of their practices here in northwestern Minnesota, joining another who retired last year and me. I retired three years ago. All this has left a large swath of traditional farms with very sparse veterinary coverage.

The solutions offered seem to be the same ones that have failed in the past, i.e., some forgiveness of student loans to those practicing in underserved areas.

While the $25,000 a year over three years currently offered is nothing to sneeze at, frankly, money is not the deal-breaker dissuading young veterinarians from taking over rural practices. It is the commitment in time, the pressures of business ownership and small-town living. The money is fine. The cost of starting an ambulatory farm animal practice is minimal and affordable. I'll personally donate my old but serviceable vet box to anyone interested.

Furthermore, in order to recruit a veterinarian — who may personally like rural life with the benefits of outdoor activities and a general slower pace of life — the veterinarian's spouse also has to buy into the deal.

Not always an easy sale.

Here are some considerations:

In the past, the majority of veterinary students came from farms, often dairies, and they appreciated that illness, injuries and other emergencies do not necessarily occur between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. A youngster on a dairy farm recognized that veterinary care was crucial, sometimes to the point that a farm's economic viability depended on it. Honestly, a 40-hour workweek did not seem like a horrible burden compared to the work farm families did day after day.

So, I fantasize sometimes that the University of Minnesota would reserve a quarter of its class size for applicants who grew up on dairy farms. Alas! Too often such applicants are selected out of veterinary school:

A rural student who attends a local high school is handicapped by limited math and science classes and farm work obligations. Their undergraduate degrees are likely from colleges that have less extensive pre-vet curricula and fewer opportunities for research.

Meanwhile, they are competing with candidates from the wealthy suburbs with top-notch high schools offering advanced placement science and math courses, opportunities to take classes at local colleges and universities, academic camps and prep courses. These advantages can be leveraged into more rigorous and more expensive universities, higher entrance exam scores and more eye-catching internships.

One pre-vet intern at my clinic was able to spend a summer at a lion rehabilitation center in Africa. This is candy to a vet school admissions board. And while this candidate may become an excellent veterinarian, there are two chances that he or she will take over a rural Minnesota practice — slim and none.

So here is a potential solution:

When I need personal medical care I seldom see a full-fledged medical doctor, even though at my age I feel I deserve one. I see physician assistants or nurse practitioners for routine care.

Veterinary medicine, especially farm animal medicine, needs to adopt some of these strategies if there is to be any rural large animal coverage at all.

The present system requiring four years of undergraduate classes and four more years of veterinary school is a daunting adventure in time and treasure.

How much of that training and schooling is necessary to providing the kind of veterinary care farmers and ranchers truly want and need?

Again based on more than 30 years of mixed animal practice, these are the services most lacking in rural Minnesota: bovine pregnancy exams, calving emergencies, uterine prolapses, bloats and displaced abomasum, vaccinations and prevention and treatment of routine ailments like pinkeye, foot-rot, calf diarrhea and pneumonia.

None of these situations require a credential earned through eight years of education and a quarter million dollar price tag. In fact, most of the skills needed to actually handle these conditions are acquired not so much in veterinary school but rather on externships and through on-the-job experience.

So here is the obvious solution: an associate veterinary degree with a shorter and less expensive course of education long on practical, hands-on training through mentorships and apprenticeships.

This would allow someone already committed to living in a community, perhaps also to farming, to be able to provide essential services to neighbors and in fact be well compensated.

The University of Minnesota, in accordance with its mission of education, extension and research could continue to provide advice and continuing education. The Board of Veterinary Medicine and the Board of Animal Health could continue to oversee examinations, accreditations, competency, regulations, standards of care and licensing as they do now for all veterinarians.

I don't believe there is a better solution.

Dennis Lange is a retired veterinarian in Audubon, Minn.